Posts Tagged ‘paper’

moon calendar, tenth month and first day, midnight
at the crossroads, still a few heaps of burnt paper
swaying in the cold wind
a beggar comes and kneels down, both knees on the ground,
makes a bow
to the rest of a fire
to light a cigarette

Going up the Eiffel tower
means walking up all the way
to the second platform
if you don’t have a ticket beforehand
and want to wait in the shortest line
at the south tier, which still takes an hour.
That is after you stood in line
and went through security
to get onto the square under the tower.
So the line takes an hour at least.
Then it costs 7 Euro per adult, 5 if you’re under 19,
3 under 10. That’s for walking up.
And we had walked all the way from the Louvre.
Through the Tuileries, took a left at the Obelisk
to get over the Seine. The Orangerie museum
looks interesting. We had already seen sculptures
by Germaine Richier and others in the Tuileries park.
I remember a sculpture by her in Bilbao at the art museum.
Would have loved to get a closer look in the Tuileries,
but they don’t let you walk on the grass. Weird sculptures,
not at all like the one in Bilbao. We had of course seen the Venus of Milo
and the winged Nike of Samothrake. No, those aren’t cereals.
And a hermaphrodite, son of Hermes and Aphrodite,
merged with a Nymph by Zeus at her urgent request.
Yes, male and female organs. Many, many Aphrodites,
many clothed, actually. Artemis, Pallas,
and all the men. Marsyas, soon to be flayed.
Not to speak of the paintings. Or the old Egypt stuff,
very well organized, shows daily life, work
and many, many details
from 4000 years ago and so on. Better than in Vienna.
Lots of busts and other stuff from Palmyra,
many other places in Syria. Yemen, too.
A whole room from Palmyra.
Anyway, up on the Eiffel tower.
Thousands of people up there at night.
Very special feeling. We had lunched in the park,
there is a place with benches on a little hill
very close to the tower. Yuhuan started sketching,
Including the lamppost in front of us. Everyone else flew
paper planes and ate and drank what was there
from the small supermarket
around the corner. Lunch at seven thirty or eight.
We came home to the hotel at two o’clock in the morning.
Subway at Bir Hakeim, not very close.
But interesting and working late. Some people get in free.
We are content with smuggling in a small child every time.
People ask for centimes when they’re asking for money.
Very polite, actually. Centimes, from the old currency.
Probably means fifty Euro cents now. I think one was asking for less
when I had my hands full this morning with groceries from the bakery
after getting up before noon. No, you don’t really notice
the permanent state of emergency
more than the propaganda for 2024,
for the Olympics. They made a deal with Los Angeles, right?
One comes first, one four years later.
Whatever. Should really eat something now.

my dad who died
sent a dream
I set things in motion
padded jackets and quilts, air conditioning
then I thought
maybe add a Little Red Book
when I was small
when Papa raised Mao’s Little Red Book
his face was all red

in 1996
austria voted to join the eu
i was either in china
or in romania
or in between
there was war
in yugoslavia
most of 1994
i taught german
to bosnian refugees
the eu did nothing
to stop the war
they said the economy
would be much better
one common currency
each person benefits
I didn’t believe them
but smallmindedness
there was a hope against smallmindedness
two thirds voted for the eu
yesterday i read in a paper
a chinese paper printed in europe
in bosnia they still hope to join
we know the eu is not perfect
but for bosnia there’s no other way
they say
what did austria do
close the balkan route
keep refugees out
some people say
austria encouraged them
to split up yugoslavia
in 1990
anyway is there another way
against orban
in every country or worse
is this a poem
or just thinking out loud
i don’t know
what will change
the eu is still rich
on the whole
it was a project
to help poorer countries
i don’t know if that’s true
fuck the tories
fuck thatcher
let it all unravel
i don’t know
i guess no-one knows
somehow europe
should stand together
somehow we say we
hope for each other
bosnia
greece
latvia
portugal
everyone scraping
hope 4 our children
europe
asia
africa
world

Cultural Revolution, half a century already.
What I can’t forget until now
are a couple of pigs.
Like people they came to Democracy Wall,
like people they looked at Big Character Posters.
They ate the glue,
they ate the characters,
spat out scraps of paper.
Don’t know where those scraps went.
Those pigs went into our bellies.
The people who posted Big Character Posters,
they are all over the Internet.

one phalanx
after the other
of paper soldiers
passing in goose step
paper trucks
passing slowly
carrying
paper rockets
paper tanks
have to have tanks
they drive on their own
armoured vehicles
glued out of paper
and paper air-planes
pass in the sky
just like kites
with broken strings
don’t know where they’re flying
don’t know where they’re going
don’t know whose hands
have glued them together
guess they’ll be burned
on tomb-sweeping day
burned for some ghost
way down below

September 2015
Tr. MW, Oct. 2015

Yi Sha DREAM # 555

Shen Haobo and I
are in a coffee shop talking poetry,
talking into the night.
“I am hungry”, says Haobo.
“What do they have here for eating?”
“There is nothing to eat here”, I say.
“But there is a cake shop next door.
Maybe they can deliver a cake.”
“I don’t want to eat cake”, Haobo says.
“I want to eat hotpot.”
”Then we let them bring hotpot”, I say.
So I pick up my phone to call them.
Right away they deliver
a twelve-inch cream cake
in the form of a hotpot
with burning candles.

September 2015
Tr. MW, Oct. 2015

Yi ShaDREAM # 556

Qin Bazi and I
stay in one room
in a hotel
(this actually happened last month).
Someone barges in,
it is a person
shaped like a cylinder
and there’s a head.
My old friend says:
“Is this a person?
If you look like this
maybe you don’t want to
live as a human …”
I say,
“You have to live as a person.
First you’re a person,
all other possibilities
come afterwards.”

September 2015
Tr. MW, Oct. 2015

Yi ShaDREAM #557

a computer screen
with my identity card
I have to squeeze myself
my whole living body
into the computer
to substitute that photo
after several attempts
I succeed

September 2015
Tr. MW, Oct. 2015

Yi ShaDREAM #561

this question on the exam
is harder than I thought
I have to sort every person I know
into:
1) our side
2) other nations

September 2015
Tr. MW, Oct. 2015

Yi ShaDREAM #564

she wants to stand
making love
with her back to a wall
when we’re done
she is gone
but there’s a shadow
left on the wall

September 2015
Tr. MW, Oct. 2015

Yi ShaDREAM #565

I’m lying down on a lawn
on my left side
on my right side
then on my back
then on my belly
everything comfortable
I give thanks
to the blue sky above